first time parent - routine - are you joking?

[rollercoaster1]

HI girls, I dont feel I can tell my nearest and dearest that some days I really feel like I dont know whether Im coming or going with parenting. I get asked if my 4 MO sleeps through - you've gotta be joking? He wakes every 2 hours - I feed on demand. A couple of months ago he was only waking once in the night and I thought I had it sussed! Now I dont know whether Im coming or going. Routine? Please - whats that? Should he have a routine now? Re bedtimes - I have been trying to get him fed and in bed by 730 - 830 and until this week thats been working pretty well. However for some reason he is napping now for 20 mins or so when I put him down and not sleeping for several hours like he used to so thats all gone pear shaped too and hes sitting here looking and me, as lively as can be at 9.30pm. Ive just spend 2 hrs feeding, rocking, walking and patting to no avail and have given up! I have a very supportive DH who thinks im doing a great job but I feel Im just surviving and have no idea what the bigger picture is anymore or what I should be doing to make life more straightforward in the longrun. Family tell me Im making a rod for my own back - I feed on demand, I rock him to sleep, I go get him when he cries - but I dont know any other way and that just feels like its what I should be doing. Ive loooked at GF books briefly on routines etc and I broke out in a cold sweat - they dont mention being in PJs at midday and trying to get a shower by 4pm - not for me but if theres any words of wisdom from experienced mums Id be glad to hear them!

DD found her own routine by around 4 months, ds by 10 months. Both were fed on demand. DD self settled from 8 weeks but didn't sleep through til she was 2, ds is still cuddled to sleep most nights but mostly sleeps through now (is 14 motnhs). DD was ff from 5 months, ds is still breastfed

A new baby is not easy! Don't be hard on yourself. If you're happy with how things are going - routine or no routine, that's great.

DD (now 4 1/2) was a nightmare! She was just horrendous when she was hungry, so grouchy when she was tired, like a wailing banshee all day every day.

I've got to say, I could not have lived through DD without Gina Ford. I had no idea where to start looking after a baby. I had no close family or friends with recent baby experience and, as I've said, DD was a baptism of fire! I really felt out of my depth and I needed to know what I was supposed to DO about this baby thing I'd got! DD really responded to the routine, as did I. We didn't follow GF's schedule exactly (I can see how she freaks people out!) but I used it as a template for my own routine and it really worked for me. Her timings did work out roughly right for DD though. I mingled it with Tracy Hogg's Baby Whisperer advice. She doesn't give set times etc, but she suggests the EASY routine. Eat, Activity, Sleep, You Time. Mine never worked that way. Mine was more of a ESAY routine! But having a routine meant I knew when I could expect DD to be hungry, tired etc. It made it a lot easier to define what a particular bout of crying required! Although I'm a SUCH chaotic person, DD ran like a German train timetable and it really worked for us!

Basically, it worked for us by having a little rolling routine during the day. At first it was short - a couple of hours from sleep to sleep. I think, from about a month, she was having 3 or 4 naps a day, and it gradually dropped down to 1 midday nap as she got older.

She was breastfed but I didn't stress if I ended up supplementing her with a bottle (and consequently I continued to bf her until she was about 14 months).

Find something that works for you as long as you're happy and baby's happy (and DH isn't too unhappy!) then go for it.

My day used to be something like: get up, feed the baby, cuddle, bouncy chair, mat with toy, whatever, while I sorted the breakfast stuff out. Feed again, nap, sit in the bouncy chair watching Baby TV while I got a shower (my chair was a Baby Bjorn Babysitter which is just the best thing I've ever bought - they just can't get out/fall out of it. DS is 2 and I can still sit him safely in it now, watching Night Garden while I get a shower!) It would continue on through the day. I'd even try to work it out so that, if we were going out, we'd be driving at a nap time so she could nap at the right time. Sounds horrendously regimented, but it wasn't - it was actually much easier than not having a routine.

DS (now 2) was much easier. We followed similar lines, but I didn't have to be as strict about it with him. He'd just drop off to sleep if he got tired whereas DD would stay awake until she was totally frazzled and then be completely unable to get herself off, which was a nightmare.

Neither of mine slept through until they were over a year. Both sleep like logs now. I've always kept a bedtime routine: tea, bath, bottle, bed and it seems to have worked quite well for both of mine.

I think it's a great idea to ask other mums what they do, and even read the dreaded 'manuals' if you get time. You don't have to agree with any of the advice! But it's quite useful to be aware of it, I think.

My LO only woke once in the night until he was 3 months old then he woke every hour every night until after 6 wks I was so worn out something had to change. So I removed his dummy because he'd got dummy dependent and then took out the glowing grobag thermometer too and things got better and better. As he was such a big baby (91st percentile) I weaned early too...and I know they say a teaspoon of rice will not make them sleep through the night well I clung to anything that helped and he did eventually sleep through and has done ever since.

With regards to his naps...I realised that after about 45 mins he would moan a little and I thought this meant he was waking but actually when I left him he nodded off again! so I began to enjoy nice 1.5hr/2hr naps when he was 5 months and I still do now he's 20 months.

I do think everything is trial and error somethings works and others don't. I think these forums are great to read about what others have done as it should give you confidence to pick and choose whats right for you and your family.

Good luck, it's the hardest job in the world! and you are doing a wonderful job

x

You've probably sussed this one but, when my DS was 2-3 months old I kept wondering why we weren't really getting anywhere with a regular bed time. Then I realised, we didn't have a regular getting up time either. Some days he'd sleep until 9 or even later, which felt like a dream as we were up twice in the night, but it wasn't really surprising he wasn't ready for bed at 7pm. We carried on taking the lie in over Christmas but then I realised I needed to make sure we got up at a similar time each day if I wanted my evenings back to spend with my DH.

Just lie. Say 'yes she's sleeping 7-7 every single night. She can spell her own name and knows her colors and shapes.'

in three languages

Hi! Had the same thing - DS slept from 10 pm to about 4 am, then fed again at 7 am. Over Christmas he started waking up 2/3/4 times a night - I am still so sleep deprived my IQ is measurably lower :P

He started preferring the bottle over the breast at around this time, and very soon after we realised he wasn't at all hungry when he woke in the night.

However, he was addicted to his dummy! We would get up, put it back in, and he'd knock it out again about 5 minutes later, just as we got tucked back in bed. Infuriating. So about 2 weeks ago we bit the bullet and withdrew the dummy, while following Richard Feber's sleep training programme. It was hard to do, but I was convinced it was the right thing for him too - not just for us. It also went a lot quicker than expected - a week later he was sleeping through until 5.30 am, crying out just once, and falling back to sleep until 7.

As luck would have it (sod's law?) he came down with a bad cough the very next day and has now been waking up every 2 hours ... Just the way the cookie crumbles, eh?

Lastly - I second bouncy chair in the bathroom - he finds mommy bathing endlessly entertaining!

If you are looking for some more structure you could try the Baby Whisperer book. It's very gentle and saved my sanity with baby no. 3 when I felt I could go over the edge! Good luck and try not to worry what others are doing. In my experience things don't stay the same for long and those whose babies are settling now may have a shock when teething comes along and disrupts things. Well done for responding to your baby when he needs you (hope that doesn't sound too patronising!!).

I got some use out of a book called Healthy Sleep, Happy Child by Dr Weissblum. It sets out what is the expected/appropriate envelope of nap & sleep times for various infant ages. He prefers on demand bf-ing but is non-judgemental in tone, is accepting of co-sleeping & thinks that waking at night for bf-ing is perfectly acceptable. Approaches for soothing to sleep are given but I don't think he is a fan of rocking. The way it is written I found gives space for variation & individual input, unlike some of the more popular titles I checked out, & I didn't find it prescriptive nor dumbed down. It goes into detail but does have summaries that can be digested quickly.

Hi OP, you've got all the advice in the world here and I just wanted to add that it sounds like you're doing fine to me. My DS is 3 months and sometimes he is an angel and at others he will not sleep and just lies there "talking" to us as we try to get him to sleep. I read GF and Baby Whisperer and just took some of the ideas I liked but can't do rigid routines. Also, soap and water makes him scream so the relaxing bathtime thing is right out. Don't take them too seriously, though - I felt depressed for a week after reading GF...

What I'm doing with mine is to try to put him to bed at a reasonable hour and to get up with DH in the morning, and in the middle to feed him when he's hungry, let him nap when he's tired, and include him in what I'm doing (mostly trips out to eat cake with other mums). Sometimes it works, sometimes I don't get dressed til midday, sometimes he won't go down til midnight, but I started feeling happier about it when I realised that this is the one time in my life that I am allowed to be in sweatpants at 2pm and that anyone being rude about it could swivel.

Best of luck and enjoy your baby

You should feed on demand if you are breastfeeding as that's what keeps your milk supply going. What no-one tells you when you are pregnant that on demand can meam practically all the time when they are very young as opposed to the every 3-4 hours suggested for bottle feeding. This is entirely normal and worth it if you can stick it. For me acceptance of my lot and subsequent surrender to my lack of life routine was how I got through the early days. It wasn't easy and I had to phone la leche league bf councellor who told me that cluster feeding and growtrh spurts were entirely normal. If you bottle feed routine is easier.

I do have a vague routine that seems to work though. That is a warm bath at night and dimmed lights etc. After this dd seems to know it is night and seems to drop off to sleep more easily and wakes for feeds. recntly however, she has been waking to play.

Would agree with the bf comments above - you just have to take it on the chin during growth spurts and enjoy it the rest of the time!

I was EXACTLY the same ... DD (now 2.6) took 16 weeks to sleep through(ish). Everyone thought they had the answer as to how to get DD to sleep (as their LO slept thru from 2 weeks etc ... yeah right!) On one persons advise I even tried 'ignoring the crying' - I've never felt so evil in my life.. knowing that all she wanted was my attention. I don't know who was crying more -me or DD by the end of the 5 minutes I lasted before picking her up for the security she wanted! To be honest, I'd thought I'd tried everything until on one of the numerous Baby Programmes talked about not giving them any special attention. I tried it in vain ... DD woke as normal for her night time feeds, but instead of having the telly on low to keep me occupied, I sat in silence, with just a night light projecting enough light into the room to stop me from tripping over my now babyfied living room floor. Instead of having my 'nightly chats' with her, I tried sitting in relative silence, apart from the odd "shhhh" Obviously, she still got her cuddle and her feed, but nothing much else for her to look forward to I suppose! Lo and behold, after a few of these, the nightly feeds got less over the next week until we'd cracked it!! She's now my angel that asks to go 'n-nights' and toddles off to bed between 8 & 8.30 of her own accord. Yes, she was a spoilt baby for cuddles, but it's done her (or me) no harm. Go with the flow ... I used to still be in pj's at 1/2pm (the front door can be ignored lol) as long as I'd hoovered / washed up / had a passing thought about what's for dinner and at least tied up my hair by the time DH got home, I'D ACHIEVED SOMETHING that day! As long as the wee one is happy and contented Who Cares .. for me, the idea of a totally regimented routine A/Scared the living daylights out of me and B/Is my idea of a boring life. You're doing everything right for the both of you... keep at it girl and you'll both get there x

Your experience is obviously not unique! I thought I was the only person in the world demand feeding every 2 hours (until i started DD on solids at 4 months). My mum got rid of my GF book as it made me feel so useless! The Baby Whisperer is by Tracey Hogg and was handy. I didn't follow it to the letter but there were some handy tips on what order to do stuff to make life easier for yourself. My DD eventually got into a sort of routine around 6 months when on regular solids- the next drama was weaning her onto bottles instead of bf when I went back to work! She slept 6.30 to 5.30 for months but now at 17 months appears to be resisting sleeping through again. I think they all change according to what stage of development they are going through and you just need to find something to get you through it without resenting your DD for your lack of sleep! Good luck- I'll be needing some too come August when no 2 comes and I forget what I did before!

I'm sure you're doing great.
Best piece of advice I was ever given - just as soon as you've mastered one phase of behaviour - it'll change - therefore you have to accept change on a frequent basis. Get that licked and everything is hunkydory!!

I found it did help though, as you have to keep on the ball and move with the dcs as they grow - hard work though!